General Electric, the inventor of inventing, is reinventing inventing. The company is teaming up with a crowdsourced social platform Quirky to release thousands of its patents to the public, starting next month with a few hundred searchable patents.

“People will be able to use GE’s technology in the creation of their own consumer product ideas,” the companies explained.

The move by GE follows in the footsteps of companies like Google, who recently contributed 10 patents to allow developers use. The Open Patent Non-Assertion (OPN) Pledge not only offers open source software, but also cuts down on the chances of lawsuits.